'Daddy, what was here before I was?'

.
 'It were all green hills when I was a lad ...'

Well, not quite, but Yamba doesn't go back very far by world standards .. not much more than 150 years ... and that means photos from the town's earliest days are still to be found ..

Here is the view across 'my lawn' -- otherwise the village green, formerly the town's camping ground -- taken this month ..

and here is the same view taken ... when I wonder? The Ritz Hotel (opened 27 October 1928, burned down 1950) is there ... and its elder-brother building, Craigmore guest house, at the end of the street ... the trees could very well be the same ones ... getting on for 80-90 years ago, maybe ..

I have a few photos from the years in between ... and I'm working at it!

Then, this morning, I found this on e-bay. It's just up the hill from me, and what was for many years Yamba's 'shopping centre', crowned by the Kiosk, is nowadays a row of four restaurants (about to be five). One is the French Pan Tree, where I usually go when I got to eat out. I had no idea it was on a site that once been the Ocean Crest Flats!

So, when would this have been? Going by the car ... (Mr Hardiman of Tullamarine tells me it's a 1947 Vauxhall Velox!). Here's an  advertisement for Ocean Crest in 1950

Scott Smith and Sullivan were the Kiosk. But the Kiosk had been there much longer ..

Yamba might not have a long history, but it surely has an interesting one ...

There is, of course, one thing here that hasn't changed ..

As Stephen Cole would say ... Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeach!